If the CDC does not add the meningococcal vaccine to the childhood schedule, it would be the first time in history a Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved vaccine was excluded. It would also be the first use of cost-effectiveness analysis under Obamacare.

As Benjamin Domenech, managing editor of The Heartland Institute’s Health Care News, stated in his May 23 Washington Examiner piece, “Whether this vaccine is added to the infant schedule or not, for ACIP not to at least partially recommend a vaccine whose safety has been endorsed by the FDA makes for a dangerous precedent. It would be a sign that decisions about such vaccines will now be made by those with green eyeshades, not stethoscopes.”

The CDC should return to its mission of disease prevention and let an FDA-approved drug into the market for parents and doctors to decide their children’s care.

As corporate relations manager, Rachel Rivest Dunbar is the main liaison between The Heartland Institute and its more than 60 corporate supporters.
Before joining Heartland in May 2010 as development assistant, Dunbar was the annual giving coordinator for Shimer College in Chicago, Illinois, and a supervisor for Michigan State University’s Telemarketing Program in East Lansing, Michigan. She received her B.A. degree in chemistry from Michigan State University and conducted medicinal chemistry research under Dr. Rawle Hollingsworth, Afid Therapeutics, Inc. during her senior year.